On Wednesday 9th February at 12 h. in the Fèlix Serratosa Hall, the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park) will officially open a node entitled "Bioinformatics, Protein Structure and Modelling" of the National Institute of Bioinformatics (INM), an initiative of the Fundació Genoma España which seeks to generate and apply bioinformatics solutions to genomic and proteomics projects. The opening will include presentations by the director of the INB, Alfonso València, the director of the PCB, Màrius Rubiralta, and the coordinator of the node and researcher at the Biomedical research Institute of the PCB (IRB-PCB), Modesto Orozco.

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A development of the Molecular Recognition Group at the IRB-PCB, headed by the researcher Modesto Orozco, the node focuses on structural bioinformatics services, which are of great use in the design of new drugs. Specifically, the services provided by this technology platform include the prediction of protein and nucleic acid structures, the analysis and prediction of the interaction between macromolecules and the study of the interaction between proteins and small molecules.

The INB is a virtual organization, comprised of nine nodes operating in diverse science and technology fields, which aims to become a bioinformatics reference point in Spain. With this objective, and in addition to the development and consolidation of local research groups, the INB promotes the development of this discipline and of computational biology by providing scientific and technical support to genomic and proteomic research performed in Spain. In this regard, the INB not only contributes to developing knowledge on bioinformatics but also trains bioinformaticians in order to promote their integration into research groups involved in these fields.

In addition to the PCB, among the organisations that form part of the INB are the following: the National Biotechnology Centre of the CSIC; the Complutense University of Madrid; the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine; the “Severo Ochoa” Molecular Biology Centre; the Spanish National Cancer Centre; the Madrid Science Park; the University of Malaga, and the Municipal Institute of Medical Research and the Technical University of Catalonia together with the research team from IBM Life Science Solutions.